During the consideration of the Czechoslovakian boundaries with Germany, April 1, 1919, the French defended the inclusion of the Germans in the new state on economic and strategic grounds, The following account of the meeting is based on the Minutes of the Supreme Council, Report of the Czechoslovak Commission M. Cambon said that "the task of Diable intricacy. It had attempted mission been one of conto give justice to ethnic claims, but okomic and strategic considerations had also to be given weight as a had ly racial frontier would have lo!
Czechoslovakia. defenceless and econo-Mr. Lansing one (d "he wished to point out that the fixing of frontier ing of frontier lines with policy, M. Cambon said in reply, that "the ethnological principle was not the only one the Commission was to apply. If a nation was to be composed strictly according to the national sentiments of each village, the result would be a country as discontinuous as ihe spots on a Pathe discussion next touched on the nther's skin." salient near Rumburg, where the Bohemian frontier made a bulge into Germany. The majority of the Commission, namely the British, French, and Italian Delegdtes, had been in favour of maintaining the old administrative line. The American Delegate, however, had made a reservation on vir? "Balfour asked M. Cambon to his point. explain for what reasons the Commission had decided to leave the salient within Bohemia.
M. Cambon said that there were historical reasons for doing, so.
Mr. Lansing observed that in this salient there were 90000 Germans and no Czechs.
M. Cambon repied that nature had so clearly marked the outlines of the Country that it was undesirable to alter them without very cogent reasons. "Further, it (the Commission) had thought it inadvisable to make a gratuitous offer to Germany of additional population, and thereby io create a precedent for the attribut tion of other Austro-Germans to the area.
M. Laroche said that "this qui tion had been raised in the Commission, which after consideration had decided that a plebiscite could not be proposed in an isolated salient without extending it to the rest of ihe German Bohemians. If this were done, the Czecho-slovak State would be reduced to very slender proportions." ^Mr. Lansing observed that this was mot a good reason to justify an in-Justice.
M. Laroche denied that an injustice was being done. "The inhabitants of these regions were accustomed to live in close connection with the rest of Bohemia, and did not desire separation, Moreover the German colonization was of recent date. The result of the policy suggested by Mr. Lansing might be that the whole of Bohemia would elect to join Germany in order not to be separated from ihe German Bohemians."
M. Pichon said that "France could not allow Germany tó be fortified by populations taken from what had been Austrian Dominions, taken, moreover, from Bohemia, which, he trusted would remain an ally of France, and handed over to Germany, which as far as he was concerned, still remainvd a country to be feared. If America refused to take into account considerations of national defence. France was not in a position to neglect them."
(David Hunter Miller, "My Dairy at ihe Peace Conference of Paris." With Documents. N.Y. 1924-96. Vol. XVI, ut)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.